Near field communication (NFC) is an international set of standards for transmitting data in a contactless manner by means of radio technology over short distances of only a few centimeters with a data transfer rate of currently up to 424 kBit/s. However, it is expected that in the future higher data transfer rates in the region of several MBit/s will be reached.
NFC communication can be carried out e.g. between smartphones and similar communication end devices in order to establish a radio communication with each other by touching them together or bringing them into close proximity with each other. However, since NFC standards are based on existing radio-frequency identification (RFID) standards NFC can also be accomplished with smartcards or other passive or active communication devices which comprise a passive RFID tag or an active RFID reader.
Communication between (a) a NFC enabled device such as e.g. a smartcard, a RFID tag, RFID reader, or any communication device being capable of participating in NFC and (b) a NFC capable mobile communication end device such as e.g. a mobile phone and in particular a smartphone requires a dedicated application specific applet, e.g. a so called App, being installed on the mobile communication end device. Thereby, the type of the dedicated application specific applet depends on the type of the NFC enabled device and on the type and/or the operating system of the NFC capable mobile communication end device. This means that each time a new NFC application is supposed to be used by a NFC capable mobile communication end device, a new dedicated application specific applet needs to be downloaded by the NFC capable mobile communication end device typically from the internet. In a next step the new dedicated application specific applet needs to be installed on the NFC capable mobile communication end device. In addition, the selection of a correct dedicated application specific applet for a dedicated application requires an entry and/or a support of a user of the NFC capable mobile communication end device. Thereby, a proper dedicated application specific applet or an application specific applet needs to be selected by the user. This makes the idea of a single touch user experience impossible when a new NFC is supposed to be used.
Further, due to the requirement for installing and downloading a dedicated application specific applet a NFC connection between (a) an NFC enabled device and (b) a NFC capable mobile communication end device typically requires the presence of a communication network such as a mobile radio communication network (e.g. a GSM, a UMTS, or a LTE network) or a local area network (e.g. a LAN network) for downloading a dedicated application specific applet to the NFC capable mobile communication end device.
Furthermore, an interoperability of dedicated application specific applets on NFC capable mobile communication end devices with different operating systems is not guaranteed.
There may be a need for facilitating a NFC between (a) an NFC enabled device and (b) a NFC capable mobile communication end device.